1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooking appliance provided with a plastic skirt, a metal pan and an electric heating resistor.
The invention applies in particular to deep fryers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the majority of known electric fryers, the pan of metal such as aluminum is directly exposed to the surrounding air, which is attended by the following disadvantages:
at the time of operation of the fryer, the pan easily attains a temperature equal to 150.degree. C., with the result that users are liable to burn themselves in contact with said pan, PA1 in view of the fact that the pan is directly exposed to the surrounding air, heat losses are substantial, which is detrimental to thermal efficiency and consequently increases power consumption, PA1 the bare metal of the pan is not conducive to a particularly attractive appearance.
A few attempts have been made to overcome the disadvantages mentioned above.
In order to improve the appearance of the appliance and to reduce the external temperature, consideration has already been given to the possibility of surrounding the pan with an enameled metal skirt.
A further attempt has consisted in surrounding the pan with a plastic skirt. However, the attachment of the metal pan within the plastic skirt is such that numerous thermal bridges exist between said pan and said skirt. By reason of these numerous thermal bridges, the skirt is necessarily formed of plastic material which is capable of continuously withstanding temperatures higher than 150.degree. C., such as the polyamides and the polyesters. These plastics have the major disadvantage of being very costly, with the result that they are incompatible with large-scale manufacture of low-priced fryers.
The object of the present invention is to produce a cooking appliance such as a low-priced deep fryer while effectively guarding users against any danger of burning and at the same time preventing heat losses to the exterior.